


Mei-Mei

by tielan



Category: Firefly
Genre: Episode: s01e01 Serenity, Gen, thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-06
Updated: 2012-03-06
Packaged: 2017-11-01 13:06:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/357122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was the way the boy talked about his sister. The rhythm of it, like falling in love - pauses and gaps of wonder and awe, tenderness and humour, and the acknowledgement that the relationship wasn’t perfect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mei-Mei

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2004.

It was the way the boy talked about his sister. The rhythm of it, like falling in love - pauses and gaps of wonder and awe, tenderness and humour, and the acknowledgement that the relationship wasn’t perfect, but understanding that familial dedication would fill what could not be ignored.

Mal could understand that kind of devotion. It made sense to him, and things had to make sense. He was a simple man at heart, just looking for jobs from which he could make a living. Do the job, get paid for it, find another job and keep going. He’d had his fill of glory and loyalty to a cause worth fighting for. That was long gone, with the Independants defeat at Serenity Valley.

Now, he just wanted to live in peace, earn some money, fly in freedom, and stay under Alliance radar.

More difficult with a couple of fugitives on board.

But he took them in.

It wasn’t because he was going to hand them over to the Feds for a reward, as Jayne figured they should. Mal knew better than that. The Feds wouldn’t stop with taking the fugitives. In the eyes of the Feds, _Serenity_ and her crew would be guilty of _something_ and they’d take them in ‘for questioning’ at the least. Alliance was like that.

It wasn’t because he was a nice Captain who wouldn’t turn in the Doc and his sister out of the goodness of his heart. Kaylee might like to think that in her moments, but she should know better. Mal weren’t no saint and never had been.

It wasn’t because Kaylee was crushing on the Doctor. Kaylee’s love life wasn’t that important - in fact, he’d have felt that little bit better taking them in if she didn’t like the Doc so much.

In truth, the Doc and his sister were trouble, and he’d probabably have been better off leaving them on the next reasonable planet where the boy could get passage to wherever it was he wanted to go.

They weren’t going to have an easy life of it on the run. The ‘verse was a school of hard knocks and if you didn’t learn fast, you learned dead - or worse - fast. ‘Sides, they were rich kids used to having everything and Mal didn’t need brats thinking they were entitled to everything.

But he took them in.

Trouble was no problem; trouble was his trade. He dealt in it, sailed through, swam in it, breathed it in. Trouble was his daily lot and he was used to it by now.

The reason - if anyone had asked him and if he’d been minded to answer them - was that the Doc had been willing to kill for his sister. Strange answer, maybe, but there it was. For all that he’d been brought up pretty and soft-handed, kid wasn’t a weakling. Couldn’t shoot a man dead without qualm - not yet - but that was no bad thing.

Mal put a lot of store by honour. Badger was right on that.

Young Simon, for all that he was a rich boy trailed to be an Alliance doctor, had an honour of a kind - and the rancher’s kid trained to become a soldier got that. ‘Sides, things changed. Mal had turned into a smuggler, and Simon was a fugitive now.

Definitely not nothing.

But inside, secretly, Mal suspected it was the way the boy loved his sister - the way he protected his _mei-mei._

Mal understood that.


End file.
